Political Giants
by xxbirdy
Summary: Sometimes your greatest assets are each other, and you must act accordingly.
1. Intro: Profile (Part One)

**Name: **Natsume Hyuuga

**Age: **33

**Occupation: **General Counsel - Legal Partner; Husband – Pending (Self-Proclaimed)

"Marry me."

Silence. A sigh.

_I'll ask again tomorrow._

On days like these, the especially calm ones, Natsume usually sat within the comfortable confines of his intricately decorated study, walls lined with books he's read and others he never intended to read (he mostly kept them there for her). His mahogany desk, perfectly positioned underneath the vast skylight, welcomed his feet as they sat comfortably propped up, ankles crossed, and a glass of aged Scotch specially imported from Scotland craft (he, mind you, has never been). Music would be playing, and he'd always find it wasn't playing loud enough for him to enjoy his quiet content, so he would awaken his phone with a single _tap. _On it his favorite song reverberating throughout his home. He'd increase the volume to its maximum threshold, allowing it to drown him in his tranquility and await her arrival.

Today, however, Mikan is there, sprawling comfortably across the couch as the vast windows of his western-facing living room walls filter through a warm glow of sunset until it reaches her face, lighting her eyes. Natsume watches this progression in silence as her legs rest on his lap. Her feet, swollen and red from wearing "expensive lawyer lady shoes" as she calls them, unconsciously reacting to the soft massages Natsume's hands grind into them. She looks up from her notes, eyes wide. "Did you say something," she asks innocently. Natsume shakes his head.

It seems, as of late, Natsume's life has become a comedic skit that refuses to get to the punchline, as demonstrated by his lighthearted proposal yet again falling on deaf ears. Perhaps, Natsume had considered before, it is his fault for waiting until she is engrossed in her notes as she took her job far more seriously than she took herself, which meant when her eyes were scanning pages of notes her ears were not listening to the outside world. It is a blessing, from a lawyer's point of view, to be able to block out a rambunctious world in the midst of legal disarray. It is not a blessing, however, when you are dating such a woman.

And so Natsume carries on, responding, "Nothing." It is so soft Mikan almost doesn't hear, but she hums after a while and goes back to her case. "Oh," she interjects, setting the papers aside. "Can I stay here tonight? Maintenance is fixing the pipes."

On the tip of Natsume's tongue is the suggestion that she should stay the night every night and, as time allows, shift all of her belongings to sit comfortably close to all of his belongings. The home, he wants to say, would love to have her. _He_, most importantly, would love to have her and that is including the things that are not-so-perfect like how she leaves her hair in the drain when she is in a hurry, or how he fumbled about the store, looking for those things to place in the shower so they could catch said hairs. How, Natsume wonders, does he tell her that he enjoys how much she has changed him from a working man to a man who enjoys seeing her smile, or the way her eyes adopt a different kind of brown when the sunlight reaches them?

Nastume grimaces at his own monologue; Ruka told him this would happen.


	2. Change in Category

**In light of where my heart wants this story to go, I will be changing the categories to Romance/Hurt/Comfort.**

**The summary has also changed, though the previous summary still stands in terms of the main event driving this story.**

**A theme of mental health with be entering this story, so if that is triggering for you I suggest you pause on this story and pick it up again when you are in a space to navigate the characters' nuances.**


	3. Intro: Profile (Part Two)

**Name: **Mikan Sakura

**Age: **29

**Occupation: **Lawyer - Prosecuting Attorney

"He just… left."

"Pathetic."

_Pause._

"You, I mean."

Mikan sits, mouth agape in feign hurt–only because she is used to Hotaru's sharp tongue though she would like her to feel remorse at times–black tea in hand, warming her palms so as to quicken their recovery from the winter's chill. The two are positioned opposite one another, hunched over a rustic table at a random coffeeshop touting itself with Italian authenticity even though, on first sip, Hotaru states her cappuccio speaks nothing close to the pure resonance of Italian coffee. Mikan simply shrugs at this, enjoying her dark tea leaves infused with vanilla bean and orange peel. She takes a sip, and sighs as it spreads warmth throughout her chest. A glance outside–the wind gusts between buildings with upper floors that disappear into the ceiling of winter morning fog–quickly returns the chill. Mikan shivers and takes another sip of tea.

_Mikan woke that morning with an uneasiness in her chest. Natsume awoke under the belief that an earlier start to his day left room for a healthier work-life balance, a term he largely disregarded until Mikan insisted he implement self-care. She watched as Natsume disappeared into the bathroom where he took a quick shower, emerging no longer dressed with steam emitting from his skin. Mikan turned over, still overwhelmed by his confidence that seemed so effortlessly woven into his stature. She only listened as he searched about his closet for that day's suit, and when she heard him reaching into his tie drawer, Mikan lifted herself out of bed. She was also an early bird, not to mention it was tradition for her to tighten his tie._

_She sat, legs crossed underneath the blankets refusing to give up the heat she and Natsume created throughout the night, as Natsume stood before her, chin raised. "Are you okay," Natsume asked when Mikan is finished._

_Mikan cleared her throat. "Yeah," she avoided meeting his eyes, "Why do you ask?" Natsume simply stared at her, she could feel it, before shrugging then leaving the room. He didn't return and instead sent his goodbye through the halls. When Mikan heard the door close, she heaved a sigh and reached into the bedside drawer and found the small pill she had snuck into the bedroom, much like every other night she stayed over, after Natsume had fallen asleep. She took hold of it, then the glass of water she left for herself. She looked at it, noting that the sadness it used to keep at bay was slowly creeping back towards her by the day. She tossed it into her mouth and washed it down._

"Hotaru."

Mikan isn't watching Hotaru when she blinks lazily, chin resting in hand. She is instead looking off into her cup of tea, watching the tea steep into a pool of water growing increasingly dark, finding some sort of comfort in the entire process. She imagines that, just like Natsume, Hotaru finally notices something is wrong. That this "something" which obediently gave way to her medications is now growing much larger than Mikan's small frame and enveloping her whole. It's in the way she holds herself, the way she speaks and, as Hotaru notes and quickly turns alert to her longtime friend, the way her eyes used to light up and just about anything but, like the tea, are drifting into a darkness. "Mikan, what–?" Hotaru starts.

"That time I went to the hospital," Mikan interrupts. She blinks slowly, and drifts her gaze over to Hotaru who leans back. Maybe, Mikan imagines, Hotru is realizing that the person she sees isn't someone she recognizes. It would be comforting, really, to no longer be the only one who feels this way–to feel as if she isn't the person she once was. "I didn't fall down the stairs at work."

"I knew it was strange. You didn't have any bruises."

Mikan blinks almost apathetically. Almost like she can no longer bring herself to hurt to a level of bringing any pain she hasn't yet experienced. Like she is tired. Very tired. "I didn't fall," she clarifies. "I had a miscarriage."

Hotaru pushes her cappuccino aside

And so, my friends, begins our story.


	4. Chapter 1

_Incoming Call_

Mikan snatches her phone from the bathroom counter before its vibrations ricochet off of the marble, bathroom countertops. For a moment, she blinks both dazed and confused as she stares at her hand, wondering when such a thing had begun to bother her to such an intensity. She sighs, calming the grip that strangled her phone, and quickly silences it when it rings once more. She knows why he is calling, and she isn't ready to talk. She also wasn't ready to talk when Hotaru had called, and so she had silenced her phone then too. Hotaru, however, followed up with text messages: _Quit ignoring my calls. _And, _We need to talk about yesterday. _Then, _You need to tell Natsume. _

_Need_, Mikan had scrutinized at the time. _Why does everyone _need _something?_

Then, almost by the power of divine intervention, Natsume began to call, and Mikan grew suffocatingly anxious.

Her intentions were not malicious when she left the letter, nor are they now. In fact, she hadn't planned to resign until she was sitting in her desk and grew increasingly nauseated by the sight of the rug she had an assistant replace five times before, only to realize that it wasn't ever the rug that bothered her. Meaning, she was running out of colors to detest in place of what ruthlessly ate away at her. Only Mikan knew that the rug stood in the same place she was standing when she had had her miscarriage, frozen in fear and confusion as Natsume's voice wafted down the hall. She hardly remembers the rest, part of which terrified her. How could she possibly, so cold and efficiently, sweep such a thing under such a large, proveriable rug that had amassed so much weight it had brought her so painfully to her knees.

She abhorred the room, and yet she did everything she could. She lied. She engrossed herself in her work. She did the work of that poor excuse of a lawyer down the hall, potentially altering Natsume's decision to fire him. But no matter. She most of her workday at that cafe across the street. Eventually the barista would have her tea ready for her as soon as her hand touched the cafe doors. And yet, across any insurmountable distance and time, the office still loomed above her. The _stain _had remain attached to her, and it was right around then that she could not carry the guilt any longer. She told Hotaru. She went to her office afterwards, despite it being a weekend. She numbingly stared at vasts amounts of paperwork, delivering them to their respective places. She found old boxes from storage and packed away her things. She threw away the rug, not once glancing at what lay underneath, and welcomed the carpet cleaners-whom she called as soon as their office opened-when they finally arrived. She leaned quietly against the desk that was no longer hers as she watched as the cleaners removed the stain. She grimaced at how easily it disappeared, noting how doing so for herself could never be so effortless. When the cleaner looked at her cautiously, watching the water turn a vibrant, putrid color, Mikan simply retrieved her resignation letter from print, examining it for errors. "It's wine," she adamantly reiterated. To herself, more like.

Mikan left that office feeling liberated, and yet still confined without a monstrous body. _Look_, she remembered thinking, _look at what you made me do. _Speaking to the limbs from which she felt disproportionately detached or, more specifically, the piece of her that had turned against her when she was so quietly happy.

A woman pushing along her child along in a stroller passed by Mikan just as she was calling her rideshare. She swallowed her tears.


End file.
